“Dance for me,” he ordered when the minnesingers started the carol.
“My Lord, please do not make—”
“I heard you danced for Ottakar. It was quite . . . enjoyable, I understand.” He turned slightly toward the old Lord Rozemberk, who chuckled; he had been there that night with Lord Olomouc.
Something pricked at the back of her mind. “You were friends with Lord Olomouc, were you not?” Mouse asked Lord Rozemberk.
“Oh, yes, they were old friends,” the King answered for him. “The two of them caused their share of—”
Mouse turned back to the King. “But it was Lord Olomouc who poisoned you, yes?”
Lord Rozemberk leaned forward. “When we were younger, my Lady, circumstances often brought Olomouc and me together, but Olomouc and I had not seen each other for many years. I could not have known that he had turned traitor.”
Lord Rozemberk was a cool liar, but his heartbeat gave him away.
“What kind was it?” she asked.
“What?”
“What kind of poison?”
“Belladonna is what the physician said.” Vaclav tipped back his cup and then motioned the servant for more. “Said he could smell it in the wine.”
“How did you survive?” Mouse was more suspicious than ever; if the belladonna had been strong enough to smell over the sweet wine, it would have been lethal no matter the treatment.
“The physician acted quickly,” interjected old Lord Rozemberk. He was lying again.
“What did he do?”
“Why so many questions?” Lord Rozemberk’s eyes narrowed as he studied her.
“Simply curious. I was trained as a healer, my Lord,” she said sweetly.
“I might like being treated by you.” The King’s one eye twitched oddly as he spoke, and his words slurred.
Mouse saw Gitta standing at the doorway. She pushed her chair back and started to make her excuses. “My Lord, I am not feeling—”
“You are a beautiful woman, Lady Emma.” The King took her hand.
“Thank you, my Lord. I think I—”
“I understand that you were raised at an abbey?”
“Yes, my Lord.” She tried to pull her hand free, but he wouldn’t let go.
“And your parents?”
“I know nothing about them.”
“But you came to the Sisters with some wealth.”
“Did I?” Mouse meant to give him nothing more than he already knew.
“You were allowed to keep a trinket of your mother’s, I believe? A bracelet?”
The smile slid a little from Mouse’s face. Surely Ottakar would not have shared this with his father, but there was no point in lying since Vaclav clearly already knew the answer. “Yes, my Lord. It was all I had of her.”
“Some weeks ago, I received a letter from France suggesting that your bracelet was engraved with a crest and a sigil—a sparrow, as I understand it.”
Mouse’s mouth went dry. He had taken the letter meant for Ottakar. Vaclav likely knew more about her than she did herself.
“I know the family who claims the sparrow. It is the Crown of Aragon.”
“Crown?” She had meant to hold her tongue, to not give him the satisfaction of sharing news that was not his to share. She wanted to hear this from Ottakar. But she couldn’t help herself.
“Yes. The Crown of Aragon is a collection of kingdoms along the Mediterranean Sea ruled now by James. ‘The Conqueror,’ they call him.”
“My mother?” The hope of something cracked her voice.
“I do not know. The letter only says they continue to trace the bracelet, but I have a mind to send a courier to Aragon myself. Like as not, your mother was one of Alfons the Chaste’s girls and you her bastard child. But by whom? Have you nothing of your father’s? Were there no jewels or trinkets of his?”
“No, my Lord.” Mouse closed her eyes a moment; she could see her father’s silhouette in her memory, hear the low rumble of his voice, smell him—there was something different about him she couldn’t place, all of it strangely vague—but none of it gave her anything she could use to identify him. That flash of memory of him at her birth was all she knew of him.
“I cannot imagine any of the Aragons sinning with someone less than noble.” He laughed as he put his hand under her chin again, lifting her face to catch the candlelight. He leaned in, his drunken breath on her lips “And I see nothing common or crude in your making.”
Mouse pulled back, trying to hide her disgust, and saw Gitta again, pacing in the doorway.
“My Lord, it is time to select your bird.” Lord Rozemberk nodded toward two men who stood in front of the table holding beautiful roosters, feathers rich brown and gold. The men stepped forward to show them to the King.
Vaclav chose one and, with an unsettling giggle, turned to Lord Rozemberk. “My cock is bigger than yours.”
Mouse stood. “I am sorry, my Lord, but I am not fully well. I think I must rest.”
“I might retire early myself, have a private cockfight in my chambers.” Vaclav lurched forward, grabbing at her.
“My Lord, I think you have had a good deal to drink.” Lord Rozemberk took the King’s arm, holding him back in the chair.
“No, not enough! Where is that boy of mine? Now he can hold his drink.”
Mouse watched a bead of sweat roll down Vaclav’s face. Was he so drunk that he had forgotten he had Ottakar imprisoned in the tower?
“Where is Vladislaus? He loves a good cockfight. He knows how to keep up with me. Not like his whelp of a brother.”
Mouse shook away the chill that ran through her. The King was talking about his eldest son, the dead one, as if he were still alive. Surely this was more than drunkenness; the King was mad.
The paleness in the older Lord Rozemberk’s face deepened her suspicions. “My Lady, I apologize if you were offended. Drink has loosed his tongue and addled his mind.”
“Of course.” She bowed stiffly and headed toward Gitta. The low warning warbles and louder squawks of the birds, the frantic flap of wings as they went at each other, and the King’s cackle of glee followed her to the door.
She pulled Gitta quickly into the courtyard. Gitta tossed a dark cloak over Mouse’s shoulders and then went back to the keep as Mouse made her way through the bailey, keeping to the shadows along the wall. The air was biting cold, snow still falling. As she neared the first guard, she kept her face pulled back into the hood of the cloak and spoke softly. “I need to see Havel, the smith’s son.”
The guard pointed to a heavy door behind which Mouse found a set of stairs. Havel was standing sentry at the top landing. Convincing him to let her see Ottakar was far easier than she’d expected; one mention of Mother Agnes and he was opening the door to a dark room.
“The others have gone to watch the cockfights. But be quick,” he said as he shoved her inside and locked the door behind her.
In the sudden black, where she could see nothing, Mouse felt the panic rise; she was back in the pit, had never left it and would be trapped there forever. She threw her hands out in front of her, touching nothing, and sucked in a breath. The smell of piss and shit and blood and unwashed bodies brought her back to the moment, and the sounds—guttural moans and childlike whimpers—drew her forward. Ottakar was here and she must find him. There was just enough light from dying embers at the center of the room for her to make out figures along its periphery.
She came to Damek first, left taut on the rack, ribs protruding from stretched skin. One arm stuck out from the socket at an odd angle, dislocated, but his flesh was whole.
Then came a voice—raspy and weak—from the other side of the fire. “Get out of here.”
Mouse turned in the direction of the voice. She took a step forward but paused at another sound: Water dripping. She took another step. Eyes narrowed, she could make out the shape of a man.
“Who is there?” she whispered.
“Go away, I said.” It was Lord Rozemberk.
Vok.
He was naked, like Damek, and his body was covered with cuts and bruises, his feet and arms bound and pulled tight. A vise ran across both toes and thumbs, screws twisted so that the nails had split and bled, the flesh flayed out beneath them.
As she came to his side, she saw the source of the water. A large copper pot with a long, slender spout hung over him. Lord Rozemberk’s head was trapped in an iron mask and latched to the table with just his forehead and face exposed. Mouse watched as a drop of water formed on the end of the spout, growing until it slipped free and fell onto Lord Rozemberk’s forehead, splattering and then running down the sides of his head. She heard his heart race and skip as the water fell; his body spasmed as it hit.
At the sound of the next drop pulling away from the copper tube, Mouse thrust her hand out, catching it. It was icy cold.
“No. Let it fall.” He was weeping now.
Mouse laid her hand against his forehead; he cried out in pain.
“The hole. Is it large? Deep? Will it be over soon? I want it to be over.”
“There is no hole. Only water.”
“But my head hurts so. The water eats through the skin, digs through the bone, like it hollows out stone.” A sick laugh bubbled in his throat, but he closed his eyes and then sank his teeth into his lips, which were already bloody and swollen. “No. I will not break.”
“There is no hole, Vok.”
His eyes snapped open. “You must get out of here. If they find you, they will kill you. Or use you. Do you understand?”
Mouse hadn’t thought about that—being tortured to break Ottakar. “Where is he?” she asked.
“There.” She followed the line of his sight. “In the box.”
On the other side of the room sat a metal box. Fingers of orange and yellow crawled across its surface, reflections from the fire. Mouse ran across the room and knelt beside it. The box seemed impossibly small to hold a man. How could Ottakar be in there and still be alive?
Mouse pressed her face against the iron grill and tried to see in through the tiny openings. She gagged at the smell but refused to pull back.
“Ottakar. Can you hear me?”
She waited.
“Please, Ottakar, make a noise.”
With the silence, she began frantically pulling at the iron latches to open the box. “I have to get him out.” Her voice trembled in the dark.
“Stop. It will only make things worse. Even if you got him out, where would you take him? Stop! Mouse.” Lord Rozemberk had never called her by her name; it stilled her.
“I have to try.” She was crying now, digging her hands into her hair as she tried to think of a way to free them.
“You will get him killed.”
And then, from the box, there was a sound. “Mouse.”
She barely heard it, but it was enough.
She pressed her face against the grill again. “Ottakar?” Her throat was so tight it was difficult to speak.
“Mouse,” he breathed again.
She thought she saw his eyes open, but it was so dark she couldn’t be sure. Then the door behind her opened and Havel’s hands were on her shoulders, pulling her away.
“I will get you out. You must live,” she yelled as she was pushed out to the landing. “Do you hear me, Ottakar? You must live! All of you. You must live.”
Havel slammed the door shut. “You must go, my Lady. It will be my head and yours if you stay any longer.”
Mouse nodded, too afraid for Ottakar’s life to argue, but as she descended the stairs, her anguish over his suffering shifted to a twisting rage and the power in her trilled in answer. She had made a promise at Houska never to use that power again, but it vibrated in her with a lust to act. She could make Havel help her free Ottakar.
She stopped on the stairs, shaking her head. Ottakar would not leave the others. And besides, Vaclav would come after his son. Mouse might command a man to do her will but not an army.
She swallowed hard as she passed the guard at the tower gate; she counted her steps as she crossed the Judith Bridge in the cold dark, lulling the power to sleep despite the sense of urgency that quickened her pace.
The snow had stopped but lay thick on the ground, crunching under her feet and shining in the moonlight as she approached the abbey. The Sisters must have been at Matins; it took a long time for someone to admit her. Once inside, she prowled the room again as she waited for Mother Agnes. When Mouse finally heard approaching footsteps, she moved to the wall beside the door; she meant to make the woman come all the way into the room this time, to listen and to act. She closed the doors behind Mother Agnes as she entered, leaning against them.
Mouse wasted no time. “He is torturing them. They will die if we leave them there. You must help me.”
Mother Agnes had jumped as the door slammed shut, but she quickly composed herself. “Vaclav might torture his son—he has always hated the boy—but I tell you, he would not kill his only heir. He is too ambitious.”
“He is young enough to sire another heir.”
Mother Agnes scoffed. “He has no wife and is not likely to find another at his age—at least not one noble enough to satisfy his thirst for power.”
“He certainly seems to be in the market for one, and I think his mind is . . . he seems not right. He spoke as if his other son, the eldest, still lived.”
Mother Agnes sank into a chair. “It has been too much for him, these last years. The constant fighting with the emperor. Vladislaus’s death—so unexpected—and then Ottakar’s uprising and the Queen’s death. Enough to break the strongest of us, and my brother has never had a strong mind.
“It is my mother’s fault,” Mother Agnes continued. “She hated him. She blamed him for my older brother’s death. Vaclav was only a baby when Vratislav died, but Mother’s mind was addled, and she was sure Vaclav had stolen Vratislav’s breath, killing him so that he might one day be king. Whenever the church bells rang, she would do harm to Vaclav. Twist his limbs, pinch him, hold his feet to the fire, dunk him in his bathwater. The sound of the bells covered his screams, you see.”
“Was there no one to stop her?”
“Only the nursemaids and my sisters and I. But we were too afraid of her to act. When he was older, almost eleven, she broke his arm, and not long after that, he and I were sent away to Austria. Vaclav’s arm healed, but his mind never did.” She looked into the fire. “To this day, he cannot stand the sound of bells. Have you ever noticed that they never ring in Prague? No, nor anywhere the King travels. A guard goes before and warns the people.”
“I am sorry for the King’s suffering,” Mouse said, “but he must be stopped. He is not fit to rule.”
The words were a mistake. Mother Agnes turned on her. “Who are you to deem him fit or not? My brother is a good man. A great man. He protected Bohemia against the heathen Tartars and lost his eye for it.”
“He has his son shut up in a metal coffin rotting in his own shit,” Mouse spat back.
Mother Agnes sat back again, the fire squealing and snapping in the silence. “Do you know he writes music? Love songs.” Her voice broke. “My mother did, too.” She puckered her lips and whistled; the sixteen-note tune bounced eerily against the vaulted ceiling and echoed in Mouse’s head.
“What is that?” she asked gently.
“A song of hers. She was always whistling it.” The woman looked up, her eyes filled with tears. “People think that shame of a broken betrothal chased me to the Church, but I tell you it was fear. Fear of becoming like her. Fear of ever having a mother’s love for a child because I know how easily such love can be turned to cruelty.”
Mouse knelt by her side, a hand on the woman’s back.
“What do you want of me?” Mother Agnes asked. “I tell you I cannot touch him. He will not even see me in private. Not since the Queen died. His mind has grown worse since then. I think he thinks I am my mother. I look just like her.”
And then Mouse knew what needed to be done: a pl
an played out in her mind.
“Will you come to him and try to talk to him? Make him see you. For Ottakar’s sake.”
Mother Agnes nodded wearily.
“Thank you,” Mouse said as she stood.
“I tell you it will do Ottakar no good.”
Mouse shrugged, but she knew her plan would work. King Vaclav was already standing at the edge; all he needed was a little help to go over it.
It was still dark as Mouse crossed back over the Judith Bridge, whistling.
TWENTY
She spent the early morning of the next day walking along the riverbank working out strategy. Mouse needed the first assault on the King’s fragile sanity to be dramatic, jarring enough to fully unsettle him. She knew the weapon she would use, but she needed to think of a way to wield it without getting caught, and she refused to put someone else in the path of Vaclav’s mad wrath.
Rounding a river bend, she walked into a flock of griffon vultures feeding on the bloated carcass of a deer. “Calm,” she said as they hissed and spit at her, shoulders hunched as they skirted around the body. “Be calm.” As they grew still, Mouse felt a flare of remorse at using the power she’d sworn to abandon. She appeased her guilt by reminding herself that they were not human; they had no will to manipulate, only instinct to overcome.
“Fly,” she ordered. “Fly to the belfry.” As she tried to hold the image in her mind, to share it, she realized the flaw in her plan. The vultures knew fly and calm; they would know eat or mate or fight should she command it, but they did not know belfry. And so they flew, not to the belfry, but over the hills at the edge of Prague, headed toward the mountains. Since she could not command an unwitting ally, Mouse would have to take the risk herself.
And so she wound silently up the stairs of the Eve steeple at St. George’s just after noon. Once she’d reached the belfry, she wrapped her arm around the thick rope and waited. Victory depended on her timing. Her life depended on it, too. Too soon and she would miss her mark. Too late and she would surely get caught.
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